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University of Alberta Alice Walker: a Litemy Genealogist by Paege

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University of Alberta Alice Walker: a Litemy Genealogist by Paege University of Alberta Alice Walker: A Litemy Genealogist by Paege Alessandra Moore A thesis submitted to the Facdty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirernents of the degree of Master of Arîs Department of English Edmonton, Alberta Fa11 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationaIe ofCanada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services seMces bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OctawaON KtAON4 OttawaON KIAON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Libmy of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seil reproduire, prêter, distniiuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Keep in mind always the present you are constmcting. It should be the hture you want. -01% The Temple of My Familiar by Nice Waker This dissertation is dedicated to Sputnik who insisted 1 remain at my desk. Table of Contents Introduction ........................ ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 : Alice Waikefs Creative and Literary Geneaiogy ........................................... 3 Chapter 2: Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Color Purple .................................. 52 Chapter 3: Mice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy: A Healing ..................... .. ....... 78 Notes ................................................................... ......................................................... 128 Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 130 Works Consuited ............................................................................................................. 139 Introduction The focus of this thesis is to examine Alice Walkefs novel Possessing the Secret of Joy within the constnicts of an established Afncan American literary Walker quotes musician Stevie Wonder in the epigraph to The Color Purple: Show me how to do Iike you Show me how to do if. (Waiker, -Color ii) This simple lyric reveals the circular nature of Waker's perspective. Walker is Uiterested in the inter-connectedness of the universe and the ways in which her ancestors-familial and literary-are models for her life and writing. She connects herself, first and foremost, to the Afncan Amencan literary tradition and claims her mother and Zora Neale Humon as her primary models for her own creative and literary endeavors. Hurston's experiences of poverty, racism, and sexism as a struggling early twentieth century Afiican Amencan woman &ter inspired Waker to persevere and overcome the obstacles she was faced with: poverty, racism, and the physical wounding of her eye. The character Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God provides a mode1 for Walker's female characten. Additionally, Hurston's fictional writing about the economics of acan Amencan women's oppression by men opened the door for Walker to do the same with her characten. Walker draws on the precedent set by Hurston; as a result, similar themes reappear in Walker's work, including: the use of ecanAmencan vemacular; focus on women's roles within the Afncan American community; female sexuality within the context of women's achievement of personal growth? individuation, and the desire for control over their sexual and physical selves. The protagonists of Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Color Purple, and Possessing the Secret of Joy dl ultimately reject patriarchy and connect with a commwity of women in order to escape patriarchy and achieve seifhood. Janie Crawford overcomes poverty and marital abuse to become a financially and sexuaily independent Afkican American woman. Following in Hurston's footsteps, Walker's femaie characters provide vehicles by which Waker cm expound her womanist views and rail against patriarchal oppression. Celie provides a vehicle by which to argue agahst child abuse, incest, and marital abuse in The Color Purple. Having established a context within which to discuss female sexuality, Waiker broadens her fiame of reference fiorn acan American women to include African women as well and, dtimately, women worldwide. Tashi's experience of femde genital mutilation in Possessing the Secret of Joy enables Walker to express her views about the physical and psychic devastation that occurs in women who are subject to this ancient patriarchai rihial. nie anger expressed by Janie, Celie, and Tashi gives them the strength to resist the sûmglehold of patriarchy; udominately, anger is expressed at the risk of the three women sinking into or stniggling against various forms of madness. In her writing, Walker establishes a community of women within which her characten cm sunive, heal their physical and psychic wounds, and achieve selfhood. Her larger political and social agenda is to create a cornmunity of women arnongst her readers and a means by which female genital mutilation and other abuses of women cm be eradicated on a global scale. By modeling her life and her writing on her creative and literary ancestors, W&er has created a fkmework whereby her readers and hture writers may see her life and writing as a mode1 for their own. Thus, like Nenie in The Color Purple, she and, she hopes, her readers "will be working for a common goal: the uplift of black people everywhere" (Walker, Color 143). Chapter 1: Alice Walker's Creative and Literary Genealogy There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that wiU sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation. --Mice Waiker, Possessing the Secret of Joy iii Alice Walker identifies heaelf primarily as an Atiican American woman situated within ecanAmerican cdture; it is for this reason that she chooses Aftican Arnencan women as her main role models. Perhaps her poem "In These Dissenting Times" best expresses the importance that acknowledging one's geneaiogical, literary, and creative ancestors has for Waiker: To acknowledge Our ancestors means we are mare that we did not make ourselves, that the Zine stretches ail the way back. perhups. to God; or to Go& We remember them because it is an easy thing toforget: that we are not theftrst to suffer, rebel, fight. love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrows, is always a measure of what hagone before. (Walker, Her Blue Body 155) Although she identifies herself rnost closely with African Arnencan culture and Afncan Amencan women, Walker envisions the body of literature as one immense story written fiom a multitude of perspectives by writers fiom just as many different cultures. Waiker often expresses admiration for writen fiom cultures other than her own, but, for the 3 purposes of this study, I will focus attention on Afiican Amencan and white fernale writers fiom the Amencan South. In "Savllig the Life That 1s Your O-" Waiker writes that both Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Zora Neale Humon's Their Eyes Were Watching God are "indispensable to my own growth, my own life" (Walker, In Search 7). This is because, for Walker, the fundamentai difference (if there is one) between white and Afi-ican American writers is less important than the different perspectives white and African Amencan writers hold on various subjects: It is not the difference between them that interests me, but, rather, the way black wrïters and white writers seem to me to be writing one immense story-the same story, for the most part-with different parts of this immense story cotning fiom a multitude of different perspectives. (Walker, In Search 5) Thus, Walker's interest lies in trying to piece together the different pieces of the pde that form the whole story: Well, 1 believe that the mith about any subject only cornes when ail the sides of the story are put together, and al1 their different meanings make one new one. Each writer writes the missing parts to the other writer's story. And the whole story is what I'm after. (Walker, In Search 48-49) Nonetheless, Waker finds that it is impossible to "completely identiQ" with white literatwe because it represents a culture which is not her own. Walker's early upbringing and education did not provide her with any African Arnerican women role models for her to look to as guides in her own development as an Anican American woman writer. Naturally, her discovery of Zora Neale Hurston, the most prolific Afiican Amencan woman writer of her tirne, author of "four novels, two books of foklore, an auto biography, numerous stories, articles, and plays," had a profound effect on Walker's life and writings (Washington, "Zora Neaie Hurston" 8). Her feelings of connection with Hurston's life and her work are significant as, up to this point for Walker, her only models had ken deAfrican Arnerican Mters and writers from the dominant culture, that is, white writers. Although Walker is willing to glean what she perceives
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